The Northman is an American film, released in 2022. The movie is directed by Robert Eggers, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sjón. In the first instance, it might seem that the story is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. However, Eggers, when way back to take inspiration for the story.
The Northman, as well as Hamlet, is based on the legend of Amleth. In the original myth, Amleth, who is a figure in a medieval Scandinavian legend, is a Viking prince who sets out on a quest to avenge the murder of his father. The chief authority for the legend of Amleth is Saxo Grammaticus, who devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his Gesta Danorum, completed at the beginning of the 13th century. Unlike Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the original Amleth. The film is heavily influenced by Norse mythology.
While the story as a whole it’s the same- the uncle kills the king, the mother marries the uncle, and the son takes revenge on them both. The Northman does manage to bring to life both a faithful adaptation and a new version that adds to the mythos of the story.
